January 3rd, Genesis 8-11

The story continues. It turns out that after the flood, humans are still kind of awful. Pretty soon God will set a plan in motion to address that awfulness- that’s what the rest of the Bible is all about!

8:6-12 – Noah and his family must have been so eager to get off the boat.

8:21-22 – Note that God does not say he won’t curse the ground because humans had learned their lesson. He recognizes that humans are incapable of living righteously but vows not to destroy them anyway.

9: 8-17 – This covenant is the only one established where nothing is required of humans. God simply makes a covenant not to flood the earth again and destroy everyone and humans just receive the blessing of that. The rainbow is our reminder of this covenant.

Imagine how scary it would have been the first time it started raining again after Noah and his family got off the ark. They would really have to lean into their belief in God’s faithfulness and the covenant he made with them.

9:20-27 – Ham sins by not respecting his father and looking at him exposed while Shem and Japheth respect Noah even in his own sin of drunkenness. The Canaanites remain enemies of Israel throughout Scripture.

10:15-20 – All tribes listed here were enemies of Israel at one time or another.

11:1-9 – Humans, once again, were trying to become more powerful and God could see the disasters that would ensue so he changed their languages so they would not be able to work all together anymore.